The present apparatus and method relate to a computer/video/peripheral interactive educational system which, by means of a program and a peripheral connected to a computer, not only shows and tells the student by conventional presentation methods and not only tests and directs the student as in an interactive computer method but by means of computer graphics, pictorial video discs and simulation peripherals, it coaches the student toward precise performance of complicated psychomotor and conceptual skills, and precisely evaluates that performance. By utilizing both a computer monitor and a video monitor, it enables abstractions to be related to reality in the learning process.
For several years, educators have been attempting to design and refine electronic means of teaching so that education and training might match the demands of exploding technology and yet train more people in less time, with less cost, and with less involvement in basic level subjects by top professionals who are needed elsewhere. The results of their efforts can be seen in systems involving TV instruction, print-programmed instruction, and computer aided instruction. All of these systems are valuable but technical limitations make each system a helpful tool only. In most cases, the systems became tools to aid live instruction. As a total system, the television media could not be flexible to accommodate learner differences. It could only "present" and, at best, stop at predetermined times so that the student could interact with a workbook. Further, the computer was limited to the presentation of written information and has now advanced to include graphics with which the student can sometimes interact by means of a light pen or touch screen device. The computer cannot, however, ask for "hands-on" demonstrations and, in response, coach with real life examples. Further, print-programmed instruction demands a heavy concentration by the learner and, although it can "interact" with the learner, does not do so with the control and immediacy of a computer.
"Live" instruction is, of course, a valuable tool in educational programs. However, a "live" instruction to 400 people does not occasion much interaction. An interactive computer, demanding of the individual student, may be preferable to the "spray" of information at some lectures. Also, numerous studies by the government and by educational institutions have shown that no media, including live instruction, is necessarily better than another. Rather, the quality of the instruction, both in design and presentation, determines both learning and retention by the student. While a great many films and video tapes have been made at great cost to effect learning programs, they have been made simply to transfer information and, for the most part, do not ensure effective learning. Therefore, they have been able to achieve little more than to make live presentations livelier and more effective and, in a few cases, to transmit necessary information in a self contained presentation. Such presentations are useful but cannot guarantee learning in the way an interactive system can. Such interactive computer instruction does not consist simply of multiple choice quizzes. The more complicated the branching of the computerized instruction program, the more individualized learning may become.
Computer aided instruction seemed to promise a high rate of participation wherein one system could handle up to several thousand trainees per year, and to allow ultra-low involvement by trainers and top technological personnel who now must devote much valuable time in training. However, no known electrodigital system utilizes the concept of a "hands-on" peripheral correlated with video graphics, video simulation, audio and computerized verbal communication which give the system ability to tell, show, test, and coach the learner in tutorial fashion.
Such system could obviously be used in any technical field to teach a predetermined skill or concept or series of skills and concepts. However, the preferred embodiment in this application relates to a computer-video learning system for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and a description of the invention hereinafter will relate to the CPR system.
Each year hundreds of thousands of people die who might have lived if people around them, average, ordinary people, knew how to recognize certain danger signals and give immediate life-saving assistance.
It is estimated that over 650,000 individuals die from heart attacks each year. Of these, nearly two-thirds die, usually outside a hospital, within the first two hours of the attack. Many of these deaths are senseless. They can be accounted for by failure to recognize the symptoms, or worse, failure to accept the truth of the symptoms.
Although some persons suffer agonizing pain when they have a heart attack, many do not. They feel tightness and a cramping in the chest as if they were suffering from heartburn or indigestion. For this reason many people write-off the symptoms as exactly that. Many even deny the presence of pain. They refuse to believe they could possibly be having a heart attack. They don't want to worry their family needlessly or call the doctor at 2:00 a.m. As a result, many die needlessly.
The ability to recognize early warning signs is extremely important in the prevention of death from heart attack. The signs include heartburn, indigestion, persistant chest, shoulder, and arm pain, sweating, nausea, vomiting, palpitations or fluttering heart sensations, fatigue, or weakness.
Another common medical emergency occurs when the person has a stroke. The victim of a stroke may only need assistance to maintain open breathing passages so his breathing will not stop. Without rapid diagnosis and treatment of an air way obstruction, the victim may die before professional help can reach him.
Accidents also take many lives, They involve drownings, auto accidents, drug intoxication, suffocation, electrocution, and others. Each of these may lead to obstructed breathing, cessation of breathing or heart arrest. Many of these people can be saved if it is known how to recognize their plight and if the reaction is immediate and effective.
Basic life support is an emergency first aid procedure that consists of (1) recognition of obstructed air way, arrested breathing and cardiac arrest, and (2) proper application of cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR for short.
Basic life support is a process which can be learned by any person of normal abilities. This very fact extends the potential of medical facilities astronomically, by having skilled hands out in the community sustaining life, in fact restoring life, in those valuable few minutes during which legal death has occurred, but no brain damage or body decomposition has yet begun. Typically then, there are about four key minutes in which the average person can act, or stand by helplessly.
Although a basically simple procedure, CPR applied to a healthy person may send the heart into fibrillation, killing someone who might have been healthy. For this reason, rather strict standards of training and certification are insisted upon by the American Heart Association.
However, the training and accreditation of individuals to recognize and give emergency treatment for the symptoms set forth above is a time consuming process. Initial basic life support (BLS) courses create high demands and time from staff instructors. Re-accreditation courses take more of that time. Some 7,000 hospitals in the United States are faced with this problem. Many more businesses, schools, and government institutions would teach more BLS if live instruction were not so time consuming. At least 20,000 facilities of over 500 people fall in this category (10 million people). Its effective use would mean that because more lay people throughout the society were trained, each heart victim would have much better odds of having a CPR trained rescuer nearby. With approximately 12 million people trained over the last ten years, the heart attack victim's odds may be 20:1 on persons nearby being trained in CPR. This training system could result in the odds next year being cut to 10:1, or even 5:1, due to the mass training possible when freed from the live mode. Further, as instruction is pyramided, the quality of instruction becomes less standardized.
Thus it is an object of the present invention to provide a basic life support instruction system which has a low initial cost and a high rate of participation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a basic life support educational system which has an ultra-low involvement by trainers and health personnel who now must devote much valuable time in training masses of people in fairly rudimentary concepts.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a basic life support educational system which provides hands-on learning and precise feedback, adapts to the learner's pace of learning by interacting with the learner, gives rapid testing and accreditation to learners, and maintains quality through adherence to accredited methods and evaluation.